Shirei, the Unlife of the Party

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Casual Mono-Black Primer Reanimator Sacrifice Tokens Tokens

awesomedude20

Creature (37)

• 1x Abyssal Gatekeeper
• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Big Game Hunter
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bone Shredder
• 1x Bottle Gnomes
• 1x Cadaver Imp
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Cauldron Familiar
• 1x Clattering Augur
• 1x Coffin Queen
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Dreadfeast Demon
• 1x Elvish Doomsayer
• 1x Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
• 1x Gleaming Barrier
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hell's Caretaker
• 1x Krav, the Unredeemed
• 1x Marionette Master
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Ogre Slumlord
• 1x Orzhov Enforcer
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Scarecrone
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Skyscanner
• 1x Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Thorn of the Black Rose
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Vindictive Vampire
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Yarok's Fenlurker
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Artifact (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Desecrated Tomb
• 1x Lifeline
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Liquimetal Torque
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Unstable Obelisk

Land (35)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 30x Swamp
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Killing Wave
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

Commander (1)

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Gift of Doom
• 1x Open the Graves
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Underworld Connections
• 1x Vampiric Rites

Instant (4)

• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Professor's Warning
• 1x Rise of the Dread Marn
• 1x Without Weakness

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Maybeboard

Creature (12)

• 1x Canoptek Scarab Swarm
• 2x Disciple of Perdition
• 1x Feral Ghoul
• 1x Greedy Freebooter
• 1x Noosegraf Mob
• 1x Novice Occultist
• 1x Phyrexian Plaguelord
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Shambling Ghast
• 1x Weaponcraft Enthusiast
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan

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This deck is my baby.

"A Bottle Gnomes a day keeps the red player away", or something, I dunno.

OVERVIEW

So, how does Shirei function?

You kill your little things, and those little things come back.

If you want that explanation with more words, Shirei likes when you play creatures that have 1 or less power. When they die in ANY way, they return to the field at the beginning of the next end step, assuming Shirei is still around, and never left. This is NOT just on your turn, this is EVERY player's turn, and so once you get the ball rolling, you sorta wind up having a turn during everyone else's turn, so uh, best get good at doing your things quickly before you annoy the hell out of everyone at the table.

I find Shirei to be quite a good time, since it's one of those commanders that functions in a unique way, and allows you to play cards that don't often see a lot of play because their ETB or death value isn't all that impactful... but when you can reactivate that effect 4 times a rotation... seriously, Bottle Gnomes 10/10, would chug again.

FUN FACT!

Shirei only cares about the power of a creature at the moment it dies! As a simple example, you could utilize a card like Sorceress Queen (Which is not in this deck) to turn your Razaketh, the Foulblooded into a 0/2, which would allow it to return to the field with Shirei's effect if it were to die while it was still a 0/2. On the contrary, if your opponent plays anything at all that buffs your creatures power to 2 or more, none of those will return with Shirei's effect.

A double edged sword I suppose.

It doesn't come up often, but you can do some interesting things with it.

NOTABLE CARDS

Bottle Gnomes

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What, were you expecting something ridiculous and out there? It just gains you 12 life a rotation and can sacrifice itself, it's awesome! Best card in the deck, fight me.

Coffin Queen

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So, the intended shtick with this card is that you can reanimate something with it, and then if you want something else, you untap her, exiling the reanimated thing, and you can then tap her again to yoink something else. And to be fair, this is a good option if you steal other people's things and you don't want them getting them back, untap her, and neither of you will ever see that card again.

BUT because Shirei is a real homie, sacrificing the revived creature doesn't do anything bad to said creature at all, excluding the moral implications of such an act. If you have a creature that's part of your Shirei loops that was put into your grave in a way where Shirei couldn't recur it, Coffin Queen can let you get it back to the field, and back into the loop. Then you're free to untap Coffin Queen without exiling it or anything.

Elvish Doomsayer

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I'm only bringing this up because there are like 4 or 5 of these effects that are able to be tossed into a Shirei loop, including Yarok's Fenlurker which exiles on ETB, and overall, this effect is STRONG. If you get even ONE of these out, that's every opponent discarding 4 cards a rotation. Now imagine running all 4 or 5 of those effects. So, I'm mentioning this here, because I'm going to say that I'm intentionally only running two of them, despite it being good for the deck, because it's generally just not a very fun strategy to lose against. Nobody likes being forced into topdecking, and then losing the card that they just topdecked. There's also the issue of, if you play these little gremlins, the table will hate target you out of existence faster than should be legally allowed.

So yeah, I kept this one, and Yarok's Fenlurker, since I figured having ONE of the immediate discard upon sac effects is a good powerful effect to include, I AM still trying to make a good deck here, and Fenlurker exiles on ETB not death, which while still really strong, at least gives your opponents a turn to use the card they just drew.

Krav, the Unredeemed

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This dude is a friggin' house. ONE black to sacrifice most of your field in one fell swoop, pumping itself by a ton, drawing you a ton of cards, AND gaining you a ton of life. FOR ONE MANA. Seriously this guy is cracked. As an... extremely specific added bonus, because he has "Partner With" and we can't run Regna, you can choose to search your deck for Regna anyways, which it... SHOULDN'T find, I hope, and you get a free deck shuffle when you cast him. I don't know where that would come up, but I'm sure it's a thing. Sometime.

Marionette Master

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Oh look, remove target player.

When this lad enters the battlefield, you can either create 3 little robot guys, or give Marionette Master three +1/+1 counters. What you do, is when he enters, choose the servos. Next turn, sacrifice him, and when he gets back at the end of the turn, choose servos again. Next turn do the same. Really you can keep doing this until you have enough servos to nuke someone, since uh, when you DO want to vaporize ol' buddy Kevin to your left, simply wait for Marionette Master's next ETB at the end of your turn, and choose the +1/+1 counters, turning him into a 4/4. And if you did ONE full rotation of servos, you should have 12 of them lying around. Now just... sacrifice all of them with any number of available sac outlets, and you get to dome someone in the face with 48 damage in the form of life loss, and that's not even including the singular point of damage you deal every time you sacrifice Marionette Master itself. If you really need the extra damage, you can sacrifice Marionette Master at the end of it all to tack on a bonus 4 damage, making for a total of 52 damage, 56 including the sacrificing you did along the way.

To sum it up, "that's a lot of damage. (lifedrain)"

Sling-Gang Lieutenant

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If Marionette Master chugged a Goblin-flavored Bottle Gnomes.

This card has so much going for it. Firstly, it's entirely self-sufficient. You don't need any external sac outlets, this bad boy works with Shirei and Shirei alone.

Next is that it's functionally identical to Bottle Gnomes if you want it to be. Sling-Gang (a goblin) creates two goblin tokens (which are goblins) when he enters, and has the added effect of sacrificing ANY GOBLIN to gain 1 life and drain someone for 1. If you sac both tokens and himself, thaaat's 3 life a turn. Up for you, down for someone across the table.

The lifedrain side of this isn't quite as potent as Marionette Master, but draining someone for 12 life every rotation is certainly nothing to scoff at.

Thorn of the Black Rose

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Monarch is neat because it's a very multiplayer-inclined way to draw cards, and introduces some interesting dynamics to the game based on who attacks who.

Now ignore all of that because you can just bring Thornlady back with Shirei every turn and force yourself to be the Monarch again.

"No Harold it's MY turn with the card draw!"

Tree of Perdition

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This is how you ruin someone's evening. I seriously don't have to explain what you realized the instant you read the card, but I'll say a few tangentially related things.

Firstly, you can be a real bastard and lower Tree's toughness using Erebos, Bleak-Hearted to make the lifeswap effect all the more brutal. And if you REALLY want to be an ass, boardwipe with Toxic Deluge, paying 12 life. THEN tap the tree. Now all the creatures are gone and Susan has 1 health left.

Alternatively you can make "friends" with someone by doing "friendly" activities together like holding their life total hostage with them set to 13 so they do your bidding, lest you sacrifice the tree and remove their health forever, only returning it to them once they've done as you ask. And other such activities that "friends" do.

Bolas's Citadel

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Quick and to the point, it's a great card, and if you have 10 nontoken Shirei-loopable creatures on the field, you can drain your opponents for 10 every rotation at... literally no loss, really.

Lifeline

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I swear this is the most Rakdos card to ever be colorless.

Are you TIRED of games that are... normal? Well, slap this thing onto the field and things'll get interesting REAL quick.

Pros of this card being that all of your creatures, regardless of power, will return to the field at the end of the turn.

Cons of this card being that all of the OTHER creatures, regardless of power, will return to the field at the end of the turn.

Nothing short of a boardwipe that removes EVERY CREATURE can stop this monster of a mistake, but I mean ay, we're playing aristocrats, odds are it'll help us more than it'll help them.

EDITS:

2023/08/11

Replaced Razaketh, the Foulblooded with Dreadfeast Demon

Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.95
Tokens	Bat 1/1 B, Copy Clone, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Goblin 1/1 R, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Morph 2/2 C, Rat 1/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 WB, The Monarch, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Berserker 2/2 B
Folders	Full Decks, Favourites, Black Stuff